


Confession

by tcarroll_12



Series: Abduction [1]
Category: Broadchurch
Genre: Abduction, Alec Hardy Whump, Angst, Angst and Feels, Gen, Mutilation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-27
Updated: 2020-02-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:42:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22918642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tcarroll_12/pseuds/tcarroll_12
Summary: A major suspect in Hardy’s case is questioned, once again making his "don't trust" mantra blindside him.
Relationships: Alec Hardy & Ellie Miller, Alec Hardy/Ellie Miller
Series: Abduction [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1653856
Kudos: 53





	Confession

**Author's Note:**

> EDIT: I just realized Hardy wouldn't be able to get involved in his own case like this at all so please suspend the disbelief ^^;

DI Alec Hardy's heart was pounding as he stared across the table at the DC, his expression a mixture of wrath, disgust, and plain disbelief.

_The Deputy Chief, of all people._

He was one of their own. And yet here he was in the interview room, about to be interrogated like a common criminal—no, not common. He had been complicit in the capture—and subsequent torture—of Alec Hardy. DC Andrews had known and yet done nothing to intervene, had not told a single person he knew who abducted the inspector, and why. 

Hardy clenched his jaw harder; Miller gently touched his shoulder and he sat up straight again, forced himself to squeeze the stress ball given him by his physical therapist to exercise his injured hand, and help with his stress, which had skyrocketed in the past 14 hours. 

The Deputy Chief. 

“Interview begin at 3:02.” Hardy’s voice dripped venom. He tipped his head back slightly. “You’re going down for life at this point, Andrews, so you’d better tell us everything you know. Unless you can live rotting in a jail cell knowing every day that unless you tell the truth now, there’s no telling how many more people will be tortured, how many more lives ruined.” He leaned forward. “How many more people will die. 

“And their blood will be on your hands.” 

Andrews was silent for a few moments, breathing just as hard as the inspector, mind racing. 

Then he spoke. “I need protection.”

Hardy's jaw dropped. “Protection?!” he spat. “From what, your little friends?” 

“They’re not my friends!!” Andrews shouted, the first round of tears pricking at his eyes. He ran a hand down his face and shook his head morosely. “They’ll find out I’m here within a day, two at the most—”

“Then you’d better talk fast,” Hardy growled. 

“No, no you don’t understand,” Andrews pleaded, making eye contact with Hardy for the first time since they’d entered the room. His gaze darted to Miller. The window. The door. “These are not the criminals you’re used to here, Hardy,” he whispered, as if one of them were standing just outside. “This is huge.”

“Then help us take them down!!” Hardy roared, slamming his hand on the table. Both Andrews and Miller flinched. 

Then Hardy’s expression softened. “Don’t go down like this, Andrews,” he pleaded quietly, completely different from moments before. “Make things right while you still have a chance. Please.” 

Andrews swallowed and dropped his gaze. He slumped in the chair, fully deflated. _He’s giving in_ , Hardy thought, trying not to let the triumph show on his face.

Andrews’ breathing became shallow and quick, his expression remorseful. “It was never supposed to come to this, Alec,” he whispered, half to himself. He winced and forced himself to continue, now near cowering. “I wanted out. Why do you think you caught me? I was sloppy _on purpose._ They were threatening to kill you because of how close you were to solving the Albertson case, but I was the one who convinced them to let you go. I needed you to find them, Alec. To find me. I knew as soon as they caught you… you were my way out.” 

Stomach churning, Hardy squinted in typical fashion but said nothing.

Then the shite hit the fan.

“They brought me to your hiding place,” he continued quietly, eyes far away as he reminisced. “Told me I’d end up like you if I wasn’t careful.” 

Hardy’s blood surged in his ears, shock pulsing through his body at this revelation. Miller saw both his hands twitch, and hoped that was the end of it. She didn’t know if she could restrain him, much less if his body could take the stress. 

“You knew,” the DI rumbled, his good hand slowly forming a claw on the metal table. A wave of dizziness threatened to break over him, but anger conquered it and he rode it out.

“All I could do was sit there,” Andrews pleaded. “They wouldn’t let me speak or—or even touch you—”

“They tell you what they did to me?!” Hardy demanded. “How they starved me, how they forced the chair onto my knees on the ground and made me drink water from a fucking _dog bowl!?”_

Miller winced. Hardy had neglected to mention that in his video statement.

“Were you watching when they dislocated my finger and then painstakingly cut it off, nice and slow?” Hardy asked matter-of-factly. He leaned forward again, voice dropping back down to a venomous rumble. “Look me in the eye and tell me you weren’t there.” 

Andrews looked at him for exactly two seconds, a thousand words' worth of fear plastered in his eyes, then crumpled inwards. No. He had indeed been there.

Hardy lost control. 

He stood up from his chair so quickly it violently clattered backwards onto the floor. Miller grabbed his jacket in warning, but the inspector seethed, “Interview paused, 3:06.” He jabbed the pause button on the tape—Miller taking note of his unsavoury color—and headed for the door, presumably to collect himself before he made the same mistake Ellie did that ended up costing them Joe Miller’s confession. 

“For God’s sake,” he hissed at the presiding officer, “do not let him out. He can bloody well wait.” Then he threw the door open and was gone. 

DS Ellie Miller was stunned by the revelation. She sat frozen for a few moments, staring incredulously at the cowering deputy chief, trying to make sense of it. _Don’t trust, indeed,_ she scoffed to herself. She just couldn’t believe he had sat by and watched one of his own be tortured like that. Alec was changed forever now, and the deputy chief had done nothing. Hadn’t even come forward with the information. Had it not been for DI Hardy’s obsessive ingenuity and keenness of observation, he might never have been caught at all. 

Then she remembered Hardy’s face as he stormed out. _I’d better check on him,_ she thought, and stood up. Ejecting the tape and giving it to the presiding officer so Andrews couldn’t do anything in their absence, Ellie followed after the inspector.  
She hadn’t gone two steps down the hall when she heard him heaving in the men's loo, all the way at the other end. 

Dizziness threatened to choke Hardy out of consciousness as he pressed his forehead against the cold porcelain of the bowl, trying to keep his tea down. Wave after wave of powerful emotions racked his mind as waves of nausea, just as strong, pummeled his stomach and his brain. His entire body, front and back, ached from dry heaving so hard. 

In between bouts of retching, convulsing sobs.

Finally the last of Hardy’s strength left him, and he slid down onto the tile floor, not having the energy to even care if it was clean or not. This entire night had thoroughly shattered his sense of the world, of justice. The deputy chief had seen him not only captured, but tortured as well. 

Hardy’s stomach convulsed again, but he made no move to sit up, even though he was lying on his injured arm. Tears dripped silently now off the bridge of his nose. In his utter exhaustion he fancied he could hear the _plink_ as they splashed against the tile. 

Then the door to the loo opened. _Ah, for fuck's sake,_ he pleaded silently, _go away._ His face burned with shame; would he have to threaten whoever had come in to ensure his last shred of dignity would not be stolen? 

The voice he heard jolted him right out of listlessness: “Sir?” 

_Miller._

Even as his body jerked in surprise, he heard her gasp—probably saw his body lying on the floor in the stall—and hurry over. 

“The hell you doin in the men’s room, Miller?!” he slurred, forcing himself to sit up. He pawed at the door lock until it turned, then groaned and slumped back over the toilet as his tea backed up into his throat yet again. 

Ellie crouched down beside him and placed a gentle hand on his good shoulder. “This constitutes as an emergency under Article 3, Section P5,” she explained matter-of-factly. 

Hardy raised his head and turned to look at her. “No, it bloody well doesn’t,” he retorted. 

She held his gaze, unimpressed. “It bloody well does when I can hear you throwing up all the way from the interview room,” she insisted. “And when you look like shit.” 

Hardy sighed. Now that she was here, he knew it’d be impossible to make her leave. _Just like the hospital._  
That thought, of course, went down the tracks to remind him of his missing digits, which routed his brain directly back to Andrews and his complicit hand again. 

His face contorted in agony and this time the heaving was strong enough to empty his stomach, tea and all. The process was unexpectedly lengthy and violent, and when it had finally finished, he groaned weakly and rested his forehead against the back of the loo again, absolutely spent. Miller let him rest for a few minutes, then squeezed his shoulder to get his attention, and he forced himself back against the stall wall.

“Take this, Alec,” she urged gently, holding a small round pill in her hand.

Hardy stared at it numbly, and not without a hint of suspicion. “What is it?”

“Anti-nausea pill,” she explained quickly. “My GP suggested them for me when the trial was going on. It is prescription, but only because of the dosage. Same as taking two over the counter pills at the same time. I’ve checked your medical records and there’s no indication of a negative interaction with any of your medications.”

He gazed at it for a few more moments, then accepted it; Miller retrieved the bottle of water she’d set on the sink and he tossed it in his mouth. After swallowing, he pinned her with his typical steady gaze. “Don’t think that whole you checking my medical records bit escaped my attention,” he said wryly. 

Ellie grinned. Hardy actually smiled back, and leaned his head back against the wall. “I think I threw up things I ate during academy training,” he quipped.

Then his expression became serious again as a sudden thought jolted across his mind. “Joe,” he murmured.

“What?”

Now Hardy stared at Miller, transfixed by the revelation. The raw empathy and understanding she saw in his eyes caught her completely off guard. “Now I understand how you felt when you found out it was Joe,” he whispered. The realization overcame him, bringing all the memories of the trial with it, and his face contorted with grief. He covered it with his hand and sobbed once before Miller channeled her therapist, gently closed her hand on his wrist, and whispered, “Come on. You’re almost through. There’ll be all the time in the world to grieve later, but right now there’s still work to do.” She knew that, combined with the gentle touch, would snap Hardy right out of his sorrow, and she was right. “We need to get the whole story out of him if we’re to have any hope of catching your kidnappers.” 

Hardy drew in a deep, albeit shaky breath, and braced himself against the wall. He permitted Ellie to help him up slowly, then over to the sink. He caught sight of his face in the mirror and grimaced. “Is this why they call me Shitface?” he murmured. 

Ellie grinned as Alec rinsed his face with the water. When he’d finished, he still looked pale, but determined as ever. 

“Come on, Miller,” he said, as he drew in another deep breath in typical Hardy fashion. 

“We’ve got criminals to catch.”


End file.
